Studio Joy

Ready for the summer?

Recently at church, a pastor addressed the congregation with, “Are you parents ready for school to be out and the kids to be home all day long?” The response from the congregation was generally negative. This response caused me to reflect on the attitudes the general population has toward their children, even as Christians.Today one of the attitudes the world teaches parents is that children are a bother. They need to be kept entertained and busy so that we parents have more free time to do what makes us happy.

As Christians, we should first and foremost serve our families, nuturing and raising our children to know and honor God. How can parents be doing this if the children feel themselves a burden to us by our own attitudes?

Through relationship, love, and authority, a child’s first picture of God comes to him by his parents. Children learn who God is from us.

Do we perceive that we are burdensome to God? This is not what His Word says. God desires a relationship with us. He desires to know us intimately, and He doesn’t want to merely keep us busy and watch from a distance at “how much we’ve grown” and “how cute we are.” He wants to share every moment with us.

An accurate picture of God demonstrated to our children would be to immerse ourselves in the their lives and have them tightly intertwined into every aspect of our lives. We need to sacrifice our worldly happiness to find the deep well of joy God has to offer through intimate relationships with our children.

I am not only glad my children are home for the summer, I am brimming with joy that they are home EVERY DAY!